I Am Thankful for … My Rakes

Today is Thanksgiving Day 2018, and I am especially thankful that a quintuple heart bypass surgery performed five years ago next month has allowed me to celebrate five additional birthdays and five seasons of serious rakings.

While I am especially thankful to be celebrating my 73rd birthday today, I am especially thankful for my rakes.

Since I am an avid supporter of Donald Trump, I am always heeding his fantastic advice. Unfortunately, my gradually balding black hair is not sufficiently grown to smart an orange grove of wavy pulled-back tresses cemented together with a special Ivanka cosmetic hair-bonding gel. Because the rain doesn’t affect my hairdo, I don’t mind getting it wet, especially when I am raking the underbrush in our backyard. I’ve also discovered that a bit of hairspray helps keep my thinning tresses from exposing my scalp.

I own five fantastic rakes, each of which serves a particularly amazing  purpose. Four rakes have huge wooden handles, and the fifth one has an amazing aluminum handle the top of which is covered with a foamy jacket which cuddles the hands and obviates the need for gloves. Fortunately, I am very comfortable with the size of my fingers, and I’ve never seen the need to make puerile comments about others’ hands and fingers. While one rake is narrow and designed specifically for flower beds, the others are wide and are intended for yards, gardens and, of course, forests. One of the latter, made in America, has huge prongs.

Brief conversation on the White House lawn with members of the press (sans Acosta) as the Orange menace is about to board Marine One:

“To Make America Great Again, I am going to put a tariff on Chinese rakes. The Chinese and all the countries of the world are taking advantage of us – they send us rakes and steal our money. Yes, we give them our money, and we get badly manufactured rakes which don’t  last even one raking.

I am a smart guy. To help our economy, I am going to design a special rake to drain the swamp. Like meeach of member of my cabinet is flawless. I am going to demand that my Justice Department prosecute the rake smuggling dealers. Only made in America rakes will drain the swamp.

There is no climate change; this is a lie manufactured by the fake news media. These collusion charges between environmentalists and the democrats are all lies. You have to be tough on those environmentalists who will not allow large corporations to clear cut our forests. If we cut the trees and send military units into the forests to rake the underbrush, we will not have to fight these forest fires. Just think of it, clearcutting will create jobs, jobs that we can keep here in America, jobs that will Make America Great Again.

I have it on good personal advice from Finland’s president that precisely because the Finns rake their forests religiously, they never have catastrophic forest fires. The fake media will tell you that Finland’s president Sauli Niinistö has denied discussing forest raking with me. He must not be telling the truth. But then what do you expect from someone who has such a strange foreign name. It is also possible that he is in collusion with the Democrats and Mueller.

I am making the best deal with Saudi Arabia, our strong ally in the Middle East. Even though my CIA has implicated the heir to the throne in the killing of the Saudi journalist, I don’t want to hear the tapes. He might have ordered the killing, or he might not have. But who cares, I am not going to let a killing get in the way of our selling billions of dollars’ worth of rakes. They need these rakes to rake their vast deserts so as to keep the fires from burning the oil wells and pipes. Besides, if we don’t sell them these rakes, China and Russia will. 

[to a member of the media] ”That was a stupid question. I have to go now, I have to work for the American people.”

 

Raouf J. Halaby is a Professor Emeritus of English and Art. He is a writer, photographer, sculptor, an avid gardener, and a peace activist. halabys7181@outlook.com